


Covetous

by osprey_archer



Category: 101 Dalmatians (1961)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-16
Updated: 2010-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:20:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Cruella met Anita. Anita has the loveliest hair Cruella has ever seen, and Cruella will do anything to get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covetous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiercynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiercynn/gifts).



Moonlight from Anita’s window flashed across the blades of Cruella’s silver scissors. Cruella thrust the scissors hastily into her velvet dressing gown, heart pounding, but of course Anita hadn’t woken up.

Good Anita. Only ten o’clock, and already asleep in her narrow boarding school bed. Her wavy hair, bluish-silver in moonlight, dripped over the edge of the bed and brushed the floor. Anita had to _want_ it cut, making it so easy.

Anyway Cruella had offered to pay for Anita’s hair. And Anita wouldn’t be bald, she’d have shoulder-length hair, which was the stylish length these days anyway.

Cruella tiptoed across the creaking wooden floor, kneeling by the bed. Anita snorted. Cruella froze, hands clenched on the scissors.

Next time she needed to steal something, she’d hire minions.

But Anita’s breath remained even. Little kitten-like snores hissed from her upturned nose.

Cruella lifted a hunk of Anita’s hair. She would cut it – Cruella ran a finger along Anita’s neck, just enough ruffle the downy hairs – here, at the nape. Anita’s hair was so soft.

The moonlight flashed on the sheers as Cruella drew them from her dressing gown.

Anita snorted like a stallion.

Cruella gasped. The scissors clattered on the scarred hardwood floor.

Anita stirred at the noise, wrinkling her upturned nose and blinking. Her eyes widened. “Cru - !”

Cruella jammed her hand over Anita’s little mouth. Anita bit her.

“Hush up!” Cruella hissed, shoving the scissors under the bed so Anita couldn’t see. “I – I came here to – I thought I’d make amends, you idiot.”

Anita sat up, covers falling off. “Cru? I – it’s very kind – but I have a train in the morning – and I’m so tired – and – ”

“Oh shut up, darling,” said Cruella. She grabbed Anita’s hands and dragged her out of bed, away from the scissors.

“But it’s at eight o’clock – ”

Cruella spun Anita around. “Come along,” she said, jitterbugging Anita to the door. “Down the hall they’re having cake and cocoa, Nita, and you’re coming. If you shout you’ll wake the headmistress.”

Anita never could say no to anything. She loved cocoa, anyway.

Cruella would try again next term.

***

Anita had arrived mid-October, late in the afternoon, her hair glowing in the slanting light from the windows: dark gold shading into chestnut brown.

Miss Tomlin sat Anita in front of Cruella. The seats around Cruella were the only open spots in the room.

Anita smiled shyly at Cruella before she sat and flipped her hair over the back of her chair. The hair hung to the waist of Anita’s plaid skirt, gleaming in the sunlight: golden light, thick as syrup, soaked through the heavy tresses.

One whole side of Cruella’s hair was white, even though she was only sixteen. And her hair wouldn’t grow past her shoulders, and it stuck up like she was a hedgehog. Better to shave it off and start with someone else’s.

Anita shook her head, light dancing off her hair as if through a prism. Cruella snagged a fluttering lock and yanked. Anita froze.

“You’re eating with me tonight,” Cruella told Anita.

Anita turned. She smiled, a tiny flicker of her pink lips, but her blue eyes like her hair glowed.

Miss Tomlin’s engagement ring squeaked on the chalkboard. Anita whirled to face front, her hair fluttering; it smelled sweet and musky, and settled softly against her slender neck.

Cruella, mouth watering, checked her schoolbag. Nothing but nail scissors.

In line for shepherd’s pie that night, Cruella made her first move. “I’ll cut your hair for you,” she said. “I cut hair wonderfully.

Anita’s eyes flickered to Cruella’s hideous hair.

“Never mind my hair. I cut Delia’s and Margery’s,” Cruella lied, thrusting her fork at the girls in question. Margery and Delia were the most fashionable girls in school, gentle curls just above their shoulders.

Anita turned to look. Margery and Delia waved at her.

“They’ll make fun of you if you don’t cut it,” said Cruella. “Everyone has short hair, you idiot, don’t you have eyes?”

Anita frowned. She swayed a half step away from Cruella. Beatrice, ahead of them in line, smiled at Anita and opened her mouth to speak.

Cruella, behind Anita’s back, glared at Bee. Bee’s heavy jaw clenched. Cruella bared her teeth. Bee’s shoulders rose. She tucked her chin into her chest and turned her back on Anita.

Anita looked at Cruella again, puzzled and hurt by Bee’s brush off. Cruella smiled at her. It felt unnatural. “The shepherd’s pie is terrible,” she said.

Anita sighed. Her hair fell in her face. “What’s good?”

“It’s all terrible,” said Cruella. She dumped a massive serving on Anita’s plate. “I’ll introduce you to Margery and Delia.”

Anita blushed and smiled. “Thank you,” she said shyly. One of her front teeth was crooked.

***

Two weeks after that. Margery slammed into Anita’s shoulder as she passed. Cruella, holding Anita’s arm, steadied her. “Sorry,” Margery muttered.

“Oh, it’s all – ” Anita started, but Margery and Delia were already walking on, giggling. Anita flushed.

Margery’s friend Delia whispered loudly, “Look at her _hair_. She looks like a _beatnik_.”

Anita froze, then turned. Margery and her friend looked over their shoulders at her, tossed their shoulder length curls, giggled and raced around the corner.

“I don’t understand,” said Anita. “She was so nice – she gave me half her sticky toffee pudding last week – ” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Don’t be such a baby,” said Cruella. Anita wiped her eyes on her sweater sleeve. “Oh stop it, Nita. I’ll go knock their heads together.”

Anita grabbed her arm. “Oh Cruella, please don’t – ”

Cruella shook her off. “Don’t be ridiculous. Go on to supper,” she said, striding down the hall. Anita, shorter, would have to sprint to catch up.

“Cru! Just don’t be too mean!” Anita cried.

Cruella waved at her, acknowledgment and dismissal, and went to the music room where Margery and Delia waited.

Cruella slapped a fiver in Margery’s palm.

Margery shoved it back at her. “This is despicable,” she said.

“Fine then. Tell your daddy you’ve worked up a hundred pound gambling debt. Like I care.”

Margery’s little fists clenched and her nostrils flared. Cruella turned to go.

Tall, skinny Delia blocked the door. “I’ll tell Anita,” she said. Her voice rose to a shrill and broke. “I’ll tell Nita you’ve been paying us to – ”

Cruella shoved Delia against the doorframe. “I’ll chuck your budgie into a furnace,” she said.

“You know Anita’ll never be your best chum! Even if you blackmail the whole school she’ll only put up with you because she has to!” Margery shouted.

“Bit like you and Deeli!” Cruella shouted back, and slammed the music room door. Delia pulled her fingers out of the way just in time.

Like Cruella wanted chums, anyway. She slammed a bowl of stew and a slice of sticky toffee pudding onto her tray. (It was the only half-edible pudding the kitchen produced.) All she wanted was Anita’s hair – there it was, glowing even in the grungy refectory, almost spilling into her stew as she leaned across the table to talk to –

 _Rose_. The two-faced little cheat was sitting with Rose, who was reciting in a ridiculous French accent – “To be, or not to be; _zat_ is zee questeeown – ” while Anita giggled so hard she nearly fell into her sticky toffee pudding.

Cruella slammed her tray on their table. Her stew slopped out of her bowl. The giggling stopped.

“Cru,” said Anita, “this is Rose.”

“I know,” snapped Cruella, glaring. Rose didn’t move, so Cruella sat down almost on top of her. Rose scooted away. Cruella followed. Rose scooted, realized she’d reached the end of the bench, and planted herself.

“Cruella once copied my French composition,” said Rose. “And ripped mine up when she was done.”

“Rose tells tales,” Cruella said. She slammed her heel on Rose’s toes.

Rose left. Anita drooped. “She was so funny, Cru. And she’s read all of Shakespeare!”

“Who cares about Shakespeare? He’s dead!”

Rose settled at a new table. Giggles erupted at once. Anita glanced over. “Cru, do let’s…”

“No!”

Anita stirred her stew, head low. Cruella ate, huge bites she didn’t taste as she ignored Anita’s eyes bouncing between Cruella, and Rose, and her increasingly agitated stew-stirring.

Anita gathered her dishes and started to rise.

Cruella shoved her sticky toffee pudding to Anita. “Here!” she burst out. Her legs felt flattened, and she couldn’t draw in any air.

Anita froze, half-risen, then eased back into her seat. Cruella breathed.

When Anita had finished the pudding and Rose’s table had left, Cruella said, “You should cut your hair.”

“Why?” asked Anita.

“To shut Delia and Margery up.”

“Like I care what they think!” She took a deep breath, scraping the last sticky crumbs from her plate. “I won’t cut off my hair to make anyone else happy.”

Cruella clenched her jaw. Margery would have to pay off her gambling debts some other way.

The fork tines shrieked on the plate. “ _Rose_ likes my hair,” Anita muttered.

Goddamn it. Cruella didn’t have any blackmail material on goody-two-shoes Rose.

But maybe she could get some on Anita?

She’d just need to corrupt sweet Anita a bit.

***

Good, sweet, anodyne Anita. She didn’t gamble, didn’t drink, didn’t sneak out to meet a secret boyfriend, half hacked up a lung when Cruella forced her to smoke her first cigarette. She nearly died when she and stupid Rose got an overdue library fine on some stupid fairy tale book they’d been reading.

Cruella had hidden it. She hinted Rose stole it, but Anita didn’t bite.

Cruella paid the fine for her.

“Thank you,” said Anita. “You don’t know what it means.”

“Don’t be soppy,” said Cruella.

She did know. Normally she’d drop anyone with socks that had as many holes as Anita’s.

“How can I repay you?” Anita asked.

“Your hair,” said Cruella.

Anita laughed. “A single strand of my golden hair,” she crowed. “Ask and you shall receive, Gimli!”

“More Shakespeare?” Cruella sneered. Anita, abashed, shook her head. Fat snowflakes stuck to her hair like jewels. Cruella batted the flakes from Anita’s hair with a mitten.

But: payment. There was a thought.

***

The night before Anita left for the Christmas holidays (Rose had left already), Cruella and Anita leaned out Cruella’s window with their cigarettes, so the smoke wouldn’t fug up the room and rack up demerits. The streetlights glittered off Anita’s hair like a Christmas pageant halo.

“Anita,” Cruella said. “I’ll give you twenty quid for your hair.”

Anita choked on her cigarette smoke. “Cru!” She started to laugh.

“Not all of it,” Cruella said. “Just chop it off at your shoulders.”

Anita, still giggling, shook her head.

“Fifty quid,” Cruella said.

Anita stopped giggling. “No. What would you do with it, anyway?” She stubbed her cigarette on the brick wall and dropped it into the gray snow on the pavement. “My mum’s made a wreath of her sister’s hair – the one who died in the Blitz.”

Cruella grabbed her arm. “That could work. It could. How much? Is it the same color as yours?” she demanded, her smoky breath clouding in Anita’s face.

Anita drew away, coughing. Her blue eyes widened, darting from Cruella’s grasping clawed hands to her bulging eyes. “No. No, it’s mousy now and faded and the only thing Mum’s got left of her dead sister.”

And too brittle for wigs anyway. Cruella caught a strand of Anita’s hair, twisting it around her fingers. “A hundred pounds,” Cruella cried.

Anita backed away. “I think I’d better go,” she said. “I had really better…”

Cruella grabbed her wrists.

“I’ve got a train at eight tomorrow,” Anita cried, breaking free and backing toward the door. “And the station’s across the city, I need to get up at six if I want to get there on time, and,” she fumbled behind her, finding the knob, “I’ve not even finished packing – ”

“You’re a stupid liar, Anita,” snapped Cruella. She slammed the door one-handed. “You finished your trunk yesterday, Nita.” She grabbed hunks of Anita’s hair in both hands. “I sat on it so you could close it up!”

Anita shrieked. She threw open the door and ran out, leaving Cruella with a few long lonely golden strands caught between her fingers.

So Cruella got out her scissors, and waited till Nita was asleep.

***

The end of holiday. Cruella hadn’t heard from Anita once. But who cared, anyway, it wasn’t like Anita would hack off her hair and send it COD.

Cruella leaned against her window. Her breath frosted on the glass. “James!” she yelled at her chauffeur. “Turn up the heat!”

“My name is Douglas,” he said.

“Who cares?” Cruella scrubbed the glass clear with her sleeve, glaring at the shoppers clogging up Brompton. “Hurry up,” she said.

“Nothing like mowing down a few shoppers to start the week off right,” James said.

And then Cruella saw…Anita? But it couldn’t be! She had the long neck, the delicate gait, and that was her hideous patched coat – but her _hair_!

But the girl turned so she faced Cruella, all upturned nose and big blue eyes – it was her. “Stop!” Cruella shouted, and jumped out of the door before James could quite comply.

“Anita!”

Anita turned. Her slim hands rose to the shorn hair brushing her red cheeks. “Cruella!” she said, and held out her trembling hands. “Are you shopping at Harrods too?”

Cruella slapped Anita’s hands away. “You cut your hair.”

A stupid too-wide grin snaked across Anita’s lips. “Don’t you like it? Rose cut it for me when she came to Surrey to visit.”

“It’s hideous,” Cruella snapped. Anita’s stupid smile disappeared and she clenched her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe you let that blockhead cut it. You imbecile! You idiot! You look– ” like Grace Kelly. “Grow it back!”

Suddenly Anita’s little mouth was hard and angry. “Oh shut up, Cru,” she said, and walked toward Harrods.

Cruella charged after her. “What did you do with the rest of it?” she demanded, planting herself in front of Anita.

“I threw it out, I suppose.”

Cruella stared at her. The cold air seared her throat.

“Oh, Cru,” said Anita. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her patched coat. “You know it will grow back.”

Cruella shook her head, like a dog shaking off a bath. “Of course it will,” Cruella snapped. Oh, she _despised_ waiting.

Cruella jammed a hand through the crook of Anita’s elbow. She hoped her grip would bruise Anita’s arm. “Come on then, darling, let’s shop.”

Anita got a sensible wool coat in last year’s fashion. Cruella treated herself to her first fur coat: floor-length mink, with silver clasps and a sable collar.


End file.
